Sledgehammer Games Delivers On Promise of Cutting Edge Multiplayer by CheatCC Staff

When Activision invited me to the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare multiplayer preview in San Francisco, I admit, I walked into it with low expectations. Call of Duty has rehashed the same multiplayer formula enough times that I just wasn’t excited by it anymore. Instead, I had been getting my shooter itch scratched by games like Borderlands 2 and Titanfall, because CoD had started to feel ploddingly slow and repetitive. The magic had gone missing. Shooters evolved and left the venerable franchise behind.

But, let me be the first to say that Sledgehammer Games has found that magic again. They have delivered on their promise of engaging and modern multiplayer while maintaining a familiar Call of Duty feel.

The first and most revolutionary improvement is boost jumping and boost dodging, an ability provided by your soldier’s mechanical exoskeleton or exo. Boost jumping makes higher level areas are now much more accessible. You can boost jump over obstacles, onto roofs, out of skylights, and through second story windows. This makes you think about the map traversal and strategy differently as well. Advanced Warfare’s exo soldiers are much more agile than the unenhanced CoD troops of yesteryear, making this game feel truly three dimensional.

Your exo also allows you to boost left, right, forward, and backward. This feels a lot like a shorter range version of Titanfall’s titan dashes. You can boost on the ground, but the real fun happens in the air, where you can theoretically boost an unlimited number of times. In practice, if I used a boost jump, I could boost twice directionally before hitting the ground. In one of the levels, there is a small rectangular room encircled by a raised catwalk. It was very easy to enter the room and immediately boost jump and boost forward or to the side and land on the catwalk, giving you the high ground advantage against opponents.

You are not nearly as agile as the wall-running, double jumping Titanfall pilots, but this is a feature, not a bug. Call of Duty is much faster this time around, but it’s still Call of Duty. Boost jumping and dodging feel more like a better way to traverse the map, explore, and get the drop on your opponents, and not like mid-encounter evasive maneuvers. Boost dodging left and right felt a bit awkward compared to strafing, but the feature is new, and I didn’t get to use it much. I wish that boosting carried you an extra ten feet, but that might be the Titanfall player in me talking.

One gripe I had stemmed from the fact that while the maps have lots of skylights to fall through and jump out of, and plenty of low buildings to explore, there were several instances where I wanted to climb up onto the highest roof, and the game wouldn’t let me. It declared me out of bounds, and I would die if I didn’t return to the match within a few seconds. This is disappointing. If you allow me to jump thirty feet into the air, I’m going to try to climb to the highest available position or leap over large buildings to cut across the map. I think some of the map design lagged behind the available features for enhanced movement. There were, however, many opportunities to leap onto roofs and score kills from unexpected positions. I really enjoyed this, and I feel like with a few more months of map design and refinement, we will see some really great stuff.

There are twelve confirmed game modes, including the standards of Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Search and Destroy, and Kill Confirmed. Domination also return and will be round based. The most intriguing new mode is Uplink, which is basically a fast-paced game of football. Your goal is to grab a volleyball looking techie item, which replaces your guns, and carry or throw it into the Uplink, which is an energy field about twenty feet off the ground. Throwing it in nets gives you one point, and carrying it into the Uplink gave you two. Games are very fast paced. Unlike Capture the Flag, there’s only one ball and one uplink, and both teams fight over them. You can also pass the ball to teammates or enemies. Only CtF, TDM, Hardpoint, and Uplink were available to play at this preview.

The exo also has an array of seven abilities that you can customize for each class. Cloak yourself, pop out a full-body riot shield, enhance your minimap radar, give yourself a health boost (think the Juggernaut perk from years past), hover in mid-air, improve your movement speed, or destroy incoming grenades and rockets using a trophy system. These abilities are limited by a battery life, providing game balance.

This is all part of Sledgehammer’s “Pick 13” class customization system. You select from a collection of perks, primary and secondary guns, explosives, exo abilities, score streaks, and wildcards. Wildcards enhance your pre-existing abilities, allowing you to equip multiple perks in each slot (for a potential total of six), throw three attachments onto your primary weapon, one attachment on your secondary, equip two primaries, and more. You may skip carrying grenades altogether so you can have extra perks. You could forgo a secondary weapon and wield a knife instead to get those grenades back. You can also mod your scorestreaks, increasing their score cost, but improving them immensely. This creates meaningful player choice in class customization, which I really enjoyed.

Sledgehammer has also introduced the supply drop system, which is a series of random loot drops for gear and scorestreaks. The more you play, the more supply drops you get. You can get enhanced guns, new outfits, and free scorestreaks to be used a few minutes into your next game. The guns are the most notable bit–they’re based on standard assault rifles, SMGs, etc., but provide a stat tweak such as a bit of extra damage or an increase in handling in exchange for a decrease in rate of fire. There are three levels of drops–enlisted, pro, and elite. Better drops give you better, rarer gear. These drops felt a bit random, but who doesn’t love a new pair of pants? The virtual lobby allows you to see your tricked out soldier and other players’ outfits as well.

Sledgehammer’s new engine, three years in development, looks gorgeous. It’s a massive improvement upon the very tired, dated-looking engine used for Ghosts. Granted, we only played this on an XBOX One, so your results may vary. Don’t expect last gen systems to provide current gen graphics.

Overall, Sledgehammer Games have created an experience that makes the game feel fresh again. This jaded CoD veteran is now eagerly anticipating Advanced Warfare’s release.

ByCheatCC Staff
Contributor
Date: August 11, 2014

Game Features:

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, developed by Sledgehammer Games (co-developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3), harnesses the first three-year, all next-gen development cycle in franchise history.

Call of Duty®: Advanced Warfare envisions the powerful battlegrounds of the future, where both technology and tactic have evolved to usher in a new era of combat for the franchise.

Delivering a stunning performance, Academy Award® winning actor Kevin Spacey stars as Jonathan Irons – one of the most powerful men in the world – shaping this chilling vision of the future of war.